


Newt Has A Bad Day

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Teen rating for Newt Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 09:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16172612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: If there were people out in the hallway, Newt just did not register it. Did not see them, did not remember them, hell, barely remembered walking out of the lab. He was focused on Hermann’s hand tucked in at his back, at the lines folded into his skin. At the pieces of lint dotting the back of his mustard-colored sweater and the little pieces of dandruff on his shoulders. At the uneven cut of his hair and the slight irregularity of his ears. This is where he needed to be right now. In the home that was Hermann.---Newt has a panic attack and Hermann is there to help.





	Newt Has A Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nighthawkms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighthawkms/gifts).



> Jay, I hope this is the cuddle up comfort you need!

“Okay and fuck you too, buddy!” Newt yelled, swerving his moped smack dab into a stack of empty chicken crates. There wasn’t even a blip of red from the offending truck’s tail lights as it zipped along, taking up the whole goddamn choked road without a care. Because nobody cared. There were too many people and too little space and they were all up on each other’s asses just to get where they needed to get. Yeah, fine, Hong Kong is fucking packed. Everywhere is packed. Those chicken crates that had scratched the paint job on his rented bike were fucking packed and the chickens that used to reside in them? Bold guess, but, the board says? Packed.

Newt tugged on his shirt, looking down at a splotch of red that had his heart hammering in his throat before he realized it was juice and not blood. “Fuck.” He swiped at the spot, knowing it would stain. He had so few work shirts left and he didn’t want to have to go out and buy more because they sucked. He liked this shirts. He _liked_ this shirt. “Fuck! Ruined my drink too? Fuck this. Fuck you!” he yelled again, even though the truck was long gone.

It’s not that the day wasn’t going bad, it’s just that it wasn’t going great. It’s just that it was. Newt got back to the lab well before he needed to and slammed the drink caddy onto the edge of his desk. Pretty melodramatic and unnecessary, since Herm’s stupid drink was the only one that survived. He fished out the carrot and kale monstrosity, went over to Hermann’s desk, and slammed that down too. The cup hadn’t done dick. It wasn’t necessary. It just was.

“Here,” he mumbled into the shade of his leather collar. Hermann just barely glanced up from his console to register Newts existence— _oh_ thank you _for that, sir, thank you_ so much _for noticing me, senpai. Bullshit_.

“Oh. Thank you,” Hermann said softly and Newt felt a shiver of guilt drop down his esophagus.

“Whatever.”

Hermann tilted his head just so, but Newt was already shucking off his jacket and chucked it at his chair hard enough to send it rolling gently across the grated floor.

“Everything alright?” Hermann called out.

“Yeah! Peachy!”

 _I almost died today_ , he thought, but kept that locked behind his teeth because if he said it out loud, Hermann would fuss and he so did not want to be fussed at. Fuck fussing. Fuck almost dying. Move on.

It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a bad day. It was absolutely not a bad day. Bad days, hell, they happened. That month or so he was off the Lamictal before he could go onto his Topamax had been stupid bad. Was he even a person then? No, he was a person. Like he was a person now. A goddamn great person, actually. A goddamn rock star.

“I’m a fucking rock star,” Newt whispered to himself, already gloving up and stripping open sterile scalpels to lay on his table. One, two, three. Tossed the plastic into the wastebasket by his desk and he even made two of them. Because, guess what? Rock star.

“What was that?” Hermann asked from his side of the lab.

“Nothing, man,” Newt answered.

Cause it was. It was nothing.

There was a choice sample of a Kaiju pituitary gland fresh off the boat, as it were, and he had been meaning to sink his proverbial teeth into it all week. It was perfect. It was intact, which was a miracle, and had zero signs of decay. This was a treat. This was mainstage, baby. This was primo-cuts and as he lifted his hand, he noticed the slight tremor vibrating down his arm. He gripped the gurney instead of the gland, forcing up big even breaths.

_No, come on. Stop it._

He could have died today.

_Stop it. Stop it. Make the incision, doctor. Doctor doctor doctor doctor doctor. Come on._

He could die any day, actually.

_Shut up. This is catastrophic thinking, dude. Snap out of it. Shut up._

They could all die. They were all just one bad Kaiju attack away from death.

Hermann could stand up and trip over the cords leading from his desk and hemorrhage from the cranial blow.

Newt could have an aneurism.

Newt _should_ have an aneurism.

_No, fuck that. Fuck that. Look, you got run off the road, but nothing bad happened. Your bike isn’t even really dinged, it was a scratch, and nobody was hurt and you’re fine and that’s just juice on your shirt and you’re all fine and—_

Bad days happened.

Newt dropped the scalpel, stepping back from his gurney to touch his head. The dry latex caught on strands and pulled too hard, too much, snapping some of his hair at the roots and it stung so much that his eyes started watering. It didn’t sting that bad. It was just the worst because it was then and not later, and it was too much to deal with in the shitty moment that was The Now. The air was static on his skin and it was too much.

Bad days.

They just happen. No rhyme or reason. They just do.

Newt ripped off his gloves, tossing them in the general direction of the biohazard waste bin as he staggered towards his desk. He didn’t have a drink, because his had spilled all down the front of his shirt. Newt looked down and saw the stain, thought _blood_ , was annoyed he thought _blood_. Was annoyed his scalp hurt. Was annoyed his shirt was ruined.

Hermann had started to move in his peripheral and Newt blocked any sounds from him by raising his hand.

“I—”

“What’s the difference between a pituitary gland and a pineal gland?”

Newt blinked, crushing his hand into a fist and dropping it down to his hip. His other hand shot up to touch his hair, smoothing down the part of his scalp that was still burning.

“ _What_?”

“Pituitary and pineal,” Hermann repeated, standing up slowly and pressing a button to put his monitors into sleep mode. He reached over for the drink Newt had risked his fucking life for, brought it up, and sipped it slowly. For some reason, watching him drink down the cold health-food smoothie until it was two fingers’ worth gone was wildly distracting. He swallowed with a soft, satisfied gasp. “I do understand they’re endocrine glands, but I’m curious to the differences between them. Why is your pituitary gland so special?”

“Special?” Newt pinched his hip hard and took his hand out of his hair to touch his lip, biting the edge of it. “Dude, pituitary’s…it’s the fucking ‘master gland,’ man.”

“’Master gland,’” Hermann repeated softly with a nod. Then shrugged his shoulders. He picked up his cane, stepping up to the yellow line that divided their lab without crossing it. “Why is that?”

“Well, pineal is a little guy up here,” he answered, relying on his biology degree to jam to the forefront of his thought and give Hermann a speed-demon lesson on things so he could get the fuck out of here and go hide somewhere. “That’s the one that produces melatonin, you know, so you can sleep?”

“Of course,” Hermann answered, leaning slightly to the right, redistributing his weight.

“Well, not even just so you can sleep, but the regulation of it, you know, like, it helps with your wake _and_ sleep patterns and your photoperiodic patterns and yadda yadda. You need it. Like, to say it isn’t important is stupid, but it’s not, like, _as_ important as pituitary.”

“Which is that muddy little sac thing you’ve got over there?” Hermann asked, stepping across the line to get a better look at the gland. They both turned to stare, even as Newt scoffed, tapping a fast staccato against his hip.

“Uh, yeah man. Yeah, I’ve been _dying_ to get one.”

Newt’s breath caught in his throat. He was dying. He was actively dying. He was _not_ actively dying. Well, no, he was older than 25, he was _actively_ dying, holy _shit_! He was _dying_!

“Why is that one better?” Hermann asked softly, now standing shoulder to shoulder to Newt.

Newt took a step away, tucking his cheek down to his shoulder before he forced himself to straighten up. Straighten up. He hadn’t been straight on anything in his entire goddamn life. Freak flag fly! Fuck.

“You called it a ‘master gland,’” Hermann prompted without moving towards him.

“I say a lot of shit, Herms,” Newt said while he was snapping his fingers and bouncing his toes. “I say shit. You want me to say shit? I’ll say shit.”

_Shit! Let me go, Herms, I’m dying. I’m dying I’m just dying, man!_

Instead, to his vague horror and vague surprise and vague vague vague understanding, Hermann wrapped his arms around Newt and pulled him in close to his chest. One arm curled around Newt’s shoulders while the other cradled his head, gently petting down his hair, smoothing down that zinging, pinging, painful scalp. Newt went stiff as a board—light as a feather ha ha, _shut up!_ —under Hermann’s hands. His own hand twitched sporadically at his side.

“I would like you to breathe with me, Newton,” Hermann said, his voice low and deep like the black coffee grinds at the bottom of Newt’s cup that morning. Like the buzzing alarm at three am to get up and collect samples. Like the ocean floor with a Breach they hadn’t closed and couldn’t defeat.

“Try again,” Hermann whispered, and Newt realized he had been holding is breath now for the count of, what, six? Seven? Something.

It wasn’t perfect score breathing exercises, that was for sure. Newt gulped in and held onto it, until his eyes were pickled with salt water and he exhaled more as a gasp than anything.

“That’s good,” Herman said, the liar. He rubbed his fingers through Newt’s hair, not enough to be bad, to be too much, to touch too much. It was good. It was so good. “Once more for me. Up through the diaphragm this time.” Hermann breathed. Newt breathed with him and this time? This time it was a little better? Next time, it was a little better. It was evening out. It was breathing. It wasn’t that bad.

Newt didn’t exactly relax so much as he started to collapse in on himself. He didn’t have the energy to hold up like a plank of wood, so he softened the curve of his back against Hermann and pressed his face down against his neck, hiding there. Hermann continued to pet his head, his other hand rubbing a soothing circle up and down his back.

“Perhaps you would like to go to bed?” Hermann whispered and while that was where he was going to go initially, of course, because it was somewhere quiet and dark and safe and alone, of course, the thought of being in his room by himself with his thoughts was torture. Newt stiffened so hard his body trembled and he clutched Hermann’s arm. It had to hurt, really. Really. He was digging his fingers in, man, but Hermann said nothing. “Alright. It’s alright. Would you like to go to bed with me?”

Newt so meant to laugh. Let the record show in Newt’s fucking weird fucking life, he so would have laughed at that. He made an awful weird, blessedly short little choking sound, and that was as much of a laugh as he could get out. _Hermann, buddy, you coming on to me?_ Which, duh, they’d already been sleeping together, but it was the principle of the moment. It deserved to be made fun of. Instead, it got a wet whimper and a nod of the head.

”Yes? Good. My cabin’s closer anyhow.”

Walking was painfully awkward. Newt didn’t want to lift his head because there was pure, blissful safety tucked in against Hermann’s arms. It was a false safety, but it was his to be delusional about and he wanted it. But Hermann couldn’t just lead Newt down the hall, bent at an uncomfortable angle, _and_ use his walking stick _and_ keep people from asking questions. So, he had to lead the way while Newt clung to the back of his sweater.

If there were people out in the hallway, Newt just did not register it. Did not see them, did not remember them, hell, barely remembered walking out of the lab. He was focused on Hermann’s hand tucked in at his back, at the lines folded into his skin. At the pieces of lint dotting the back of his mustard-colored sweater and the little pieces of dandruff on his shoulders. At the uneven cut of his hair and the slight irregularity of his ears. This is where he needed to be right now. In the home that was Hermann.

Christ, Newt was a bad tenant, though.

Newt was also wiped _out_ when Hermann swiped his key card and opened his cabin door. He could already feel a headache coming on, hunching lower, shorter, to curl a hand across his stomach and the other one tug at is bangs. He shuffled inside, something that Hermann would usually call him out for having a lazy step, but he let it slide. He let Newt literally slide across the floor.

“Would you like to lie down?”

He would. He so would. Newt moved to the bed and flopped down onto it, curling up into a too-tight ball as soon as he was on the mattress.

“Can I take your shoes?”

Oh, right. Right. He shouldn’t put his boots up here. That was gross. Newt uncurled just enough to paw at his feet, but Hermann was there, already tugging at the laces, firmly gripping his ankles and giving them a reassuring squeeze before he finally worked his boots off. Newt watched him without seeing him, his eyes filmy. God, he wanted to cry. Or continue to cry? Or something.

“Now. Would you like me to sit with you here? Or over at my desk. I don’t want to crowd you, darling,” Hermann said, his voice this beautiful even string of words that warmed Newt better than the blankets beneath him.

But.

But words.

But words were hard.

Newt tucked his limbs back in, clutching around the center of the terrible itchy pain that was his racing heartbeat. Hermann put a flat hand on Newt’s side. Warm. Not hot like Newt was all the time, but just. Warm.

“Up on the bed?”

Newt nodded.

That was easier.

As soon as Hermann had stepped out of his loafers and rested his cane against the night stand and somehow crawled up on the mattress next to Newt, Newt found his way wrapped around him, pushing his face against his chest. He cried. Or he maybe cried. Or he maybe thought he wanted to cry but didn’t even have the energy to push out a few good cathartic tears, and just breathed in time with Hermann’s breathing. Better than he was doing in the lab, at least.

“So. We’ve gone and had ourselves what one might call a ‘bad day,’” Hermann said softly, running his hands with just enough pressure down Newt’s back without tickling him or digging in. “Bit of a wash. And we either take it or leave it and I say, let’s leave it. Time to rest, _liebling._ ”

 _Time to rest_ , Newt repeated back in his head, breathing better. He wasn’t nearly as tense, simply because he didn’t have the energy to be so anymore, but Hermann, man, he was helping. Honestly.

”And you know what?” Hermann paused, letting the question linger in case Newt wanted to speak up. He so did not want to. “It’s not a bad thing. You are not a bad thing, Newton.”

Newt closed his eyes, which were definitely, definitely, finally, definitely leaking. At least a little. Kinda. Steady streams down his cheeks. So definitely actively crying. He lifted his chin when Hermann pulled it up, but he didn’t want to open his eyes and see Herms just fucking pitying him.

“Can I kiss you?”

Newt shook his head. He felt a pang of guilt that he couldn’t handle that right now. He wanted to. He always wanted to. Just not now.

“Alright, darling,” Hermann said softly and the way he said it made it seem like, yeah. It was alright. It was alright. They were alright.

They just stayed there, both of them these uneven parentheses around each other, and focused on nothing more than breathing. Newt’s scalp stopped rippling with phantom pains and his heart slowed and slowed and slowed, spiking once when he thought about how slow it could go until it was nothing, until he was dead. Hermann must have felt him twitch, because he picked back up to smoothing down his back and gently whispering to him, “You’re alright. You’re here with me. You’re alright.”

And he was.

Maybe they just. They needed this. They needed a bad moment like they needed a hole in the head, yeah, but sometimes people had to get trepanation to stop their brains from swelling. No. No, the panic attack was decidedly not needed, but the cuddling was good. It was quiet and warm, and Hermann maybe stopped petting his back, but Newt had the strength to lift his hand and start trailing a line with his fingertips across Hermann’s forearm. They synced up their breathing, in and out, slow and steady.

“Did you really not know what a pituitary gland was?” Newt asked after a time.

“No, I knew,” Hermann answered with a hum, his eyes closed over on his side of the pillow.

“Thank god, because I think I was ranting about it last week.”

“You explained it forty-one times, in fact.”

“You counted?”

“I always do,” Hermann said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. Newt stared at it, at his thin lips, at the crease there from his face smashed into the bedding. He breathed a little louder while he stared, in through his nose, and Hermann finally opened an eye to him. “Still alright?”

“Yeah,” Newt said without looking away from Hermann’s mouth.

“Do you need something?”

“Can you kiss me now?”

The smile pinched up higher, spreading up across the tiny muscles of his face and up to the lines that framed his eyes. Hermann leaned in slowly and Newt rushed up to meet him. And that was good. This was good. This was, despite everything, just good. They needed that.


End file.
